The Bloomington-Normal community will mark Juneteenth on Saturday during an event at Miller Park, featuring live music and dance, activities for kids, and a ceremony commemorating three community servants.
The Juneteenth event runs from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Miller Park. It’s hosted by the City of Bloomington and the Bloomington-Normal Black History Project. This free event will feature live performances, food trucks, a children’s area, soul line dancing, the introduction of Bloomington-Normal’s first Miss Juneteenth, and free admission to the Miller Park Zoo and mini-golf course.
Also during the event, this year’s three recipients of the Juneteenth Community Icon Awards will be honored. They are former Bloomington Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe, former Normal Town Council member Chemberly Harris, and [posthumously] former local NAACP president John H. Elliott.
Harris, who left the council after running unsuccessfully for mayor in April, said it’s very meaningful to her to be dubbed a community icon.
“It does put me in a position to say, I have to keep going. I can’t stop. It does inspire me to do more,” Harris said. “I can say maybe I have a bit of imposter syndrome about it right now, because I’m getting it with someone who I looked up to, like John Elliott.”
Mwilambwe became Bloomington’s first Black mayor in 2021. Elliott was a widely known and deeply respected community leader who also worked at State Farm for over 40 years.
Harris, who was the first Black member of the Normal Town Council, is being recognized for her advocacy for social equity and youth leadership. She created the Youth on A Mission program to empower young civic leaders and spearheaded the town’s first Racial Equity Summit.
Harris said her own mentors and teachers played a significant role in her youth – serving as a “safety net” that allowed her to explore her passions.
“I could never give them what they gave me. So what I do is pay it forward to every youth that I can. I mentor so many people, young people, and I try to give back. I’m in the schools. Because sometimes just to see that one face can change everything. It can make a difference,” she said.
Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S. by commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas. Their freedom came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln liberated slaves in the Confederacy by signing the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.
Juneteenth is a relatively new holiday for some people; it only became a state holiday in 2021. But it’s something Harris has always been aware of.
The residuals of slavery are still with us, she said — manifested by realities like the wealth gap and home ownership gap. That requires real conversation and a readiness to listen, she said.
“We can celebrate it and commercialize it, but if we also don’t accept it in teaching, educating, coming to grips with the realities of it, not shying away from it, then what we’re doing is putting on a performance,” Harris said. “And I’m hoping that we no longer do that.”
